


In Retrospect, I'm an Idiot

by iPlaySports



Category: Newsies (1992), Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: AU, Angst, Enemies to Lovers, Kinda, M/M, Mentions of Sexual Content, Romance, Secret Relationship, Slow Build, Whats new?, but not smut either, but still work as Newsies, jack is an idiot, kinda not really vague, lots of tags, poor Davey, they in college
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-23
Updated: 2021-02-23
Packaged: 2021-03-13 22:29:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29658288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iPlaySports/pseuds/iPlaySports
Summary: Jack Kelly does stupid things, sometimes, maybe, possibly, often. But, nothing as stupid as what he's doing to Davey. Luckily, he knows how to fix it.
Relationships: David Jacobs/Jack Kelly
Comments: 1
Kudos: 22





	In Retrospect, I'm an Idiot

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guysssss. Back at it again with the Newsies, trying to expand my horizons and all that. Um, in the tags I put AU, but its really not, kinda like a future fic? ish. But, they are in college but still work for the Newsies sometimes and jack still lives at the newsboy house and davy with his parents. Crutchie is more a background charater.

The first drops of rain against Davey's bedroom window echo the soft kisses of good-bye that Jack places on Davey's forehead. They're simple feathery-soft touches so as not to wake him. Maybe that would make them unimportant if Davey doesn't even know they're there, but these kisses are important to Jack. They're his last chance to kiss Davey before the school week begins and they go back to being indifferent to one another again – at least in public.

It's Jack's rule, so he has no one to blame but himself.

Though in the blurry light of a grey but perfect morning, he can't remember why he came up with that rule. Did he think his rep as a charming flirt was so important that he had to protect it? Or was it because – at the time – he didn't want to be known as associating with David Jacobs?

Davey had agreed to the rule so Jack didn't think it was that awful, but looking at Davey's face, solemn in sleep, a small smile on his lips that had started when Jack put his arms around him at bedtime and still hadn't stopped – wouldn't stop until Davey woke and found Jack gone – he realizes, yes, it is a  _ god-awful _ rule.

They started out less-than-friendly, arguing and competing over everything and anything – math grades, newspaper sales, Davey's governmental science friends, Jack's art freak gang- just to get under each other's skin.

But, a game of Seven Minutes in Heaven during an all-inclusive holiday party changed everything.

It didn't make them like one another, but it made them give in to the fact that they  _ craved _ each other. They started to find excuses to be alone between classes, making out in closets (haha, laugh it up) and back alleys, sneaking off to the theatre when they knew they weren’t needed elsewhere for a while. These ‘sessions’ (Davey’s word, not Jack’s) were exciting, passionate, and always accompanied by a healthy dose of passive remarks to keep stronger feelings at bay.

\--

"I don't know why I keep doing this with you, Kelly," Dave moaned as he fumbled with Jack's belt buckle.

"Because face it, Davey," Jack said with his hand already down the front of the other boy’s pants, stroking his cock slowly, "you love my dick down your throat."

"In your dreams, jackass," Davey laughed shortly, but with an edge that exposed how close to cumming Jack had already taken him.

"Does this feel like a dream to you?" Jack asked with a sly smirk when he felt Davey buck up into his fist.

"Yeah," Davey groaned, "it's like a nightmare, but at least you aren’t 100% unattractive..."

\--

They spent weeks in the heavy petting and making out stage, moving quickly to the hand job and blowjob stage until Jack had enough. He thought about Davey constantly, dreamt about him. He spent his spare time masturbating while imagining what Davey looked like beneath his uniform, what he would sound like lying beneath him, taking him from behind, sweat rolling down his pale skin, his lean body bending for him… only for him…

Getting Davey to agree to a one-night stand turned out to be easier than Jack thought it would.

Jack showed up at Davey's house one Saturday night when he knew Davey's roommate and foster brother, Crutchie, would be away visiting his friends, and he had somehow gotten out of a weekend trip with the rest of his family. Jack’s mind was filled with arguments and a list of convincing reasons. When the pale boy opened the door, he said, "Davey, I don't know how to tell you this…"

Davey cut in and said, "Me, too," with that vivacious head nod that Davey used whenever he was excited about something. Jack was happy to see that Davey was excited about this, excited about  _ him _ .

Hooking up was supposed to get Davey out of Jack's system. It was supposed to be a one-time thing that would put an end to all this.

It wasn't supposed to change Jack. It wasn't supposed to make Jack want Davey more.

Especially when Jack found out that before him, Davey had been a virgin.

\--

"Why would you do that, Davey?" Jack asked. "Why would you just throw it away like that?"

"Throw what away?" Davey returned with an unamused chuckle. "You act like my virginity was a physical thing…with feelings…like a puppy."

Jack turned away from him with a huff, red-faced. He felt ashamed.

At the very least, he wished Davey had told him beforehand. He could have done things differently…better. He wouldn't have rushed. He wouldn't have been so rough.

He didn't admit to any of that, though. He had to remember that this wasn't supposed to mean anything.

"Don't be ridiculous," Jack said.

"I'm not being ridiculous," Davey responded. "I don't think of it that way. I wanted to have sex with you, and I did. If you want to see it as you "taking my virginity"…" he emphasized using his fingers to make air quotes, "then so be it." Davey walked around Jack and confronted him, not letting him hide with his back turned. "But that means you have it now. It's your responsibility." Davey locked his eyes on Jack's glare – pleading eyes, Jack realizes now, in retrospect – and said, "so, what are you going to do with it then, Jack?"

\--

Jack didn't want that responsibility, and in a way, he resented Davey for putting that on him. But if Davey was going to treat it as unimportant, then Jack was going to take a page from his book and make it unimportant, too. The following weekend, to prove that it wasn’t important, he went to a party at NYU, intent on spending the weekend getting drunk and fucked within an inch of his life.

He saw Davey only once before he left, confused by his distance, by his icy veneer, vaguely recognizing it as a mask that he wore to conceal a befuddled and bruised heart.

"So, where are you heading off to?" Davey asked, catching Jack by the arm as he turned to head up 43rd, instead south toward the housing building.

"Oh," Jack stammered, stopping short. "I thought I told you."

Davey smiled weakly and shook his head.

"Uh, no…you didn't," he said, keeping his comment lighthearted to cover his hurt.

"I'm going to a party at NYU," Jack said plainly, telling himself it didn't matter. He could do what he pleased. Davey knew that. He had no reason or right to be upset.

"A…a party… at NYU?" Davey asked, spacing the words out as if they were individual parts of a puzzle he was having trouble piecing together.

"Yeah. I'm going to be there all weekend. I would have invited you along, but I know it's not your scene."

"What?" Davey blinked a few times, repeating the words in his head. "Yeah, no, you're right. It's not my scene."

They stood together in silence while Davey, dressed in jeans and a black sweater (a sweater Jack mentioned once that he adored on Davey), stared at the overnight bag Jack had slung over his shoulder, and Jack, uncomfortable at the blank look in Davey's eyes, kept glancing toward the door.

"Well, is Crutch here?" Jack suggested in his eagerness to leave. "Maybe you guys can hang and watch CSI: Miami…give each other trivia or whatever. You guys haven't done that in a while."

"He spends every weekend with his AAPD friends now," Davey replied dryly. "You know that. I told you that."

"Did you?" Jack asked, anxiously shifting his weight on his feet. "I don't…I don't remember."

"Well, you're only at my house every fucking weekend, you think you would have figured it out," Davey snapped, his volume inching up higher.

"Why are you getting so frigid bitch on me all of a sudden? " Jack snapped back. "I've been waiting a month to go to this party."

"A month?" Davey asked, surprised. "You mean, the whole month that you've been doing me, you've been looking forward to going to some college party?"

"Uh…yeah…and…"

"I remember you talking to Jeff and Nick about the last one."

"So?" Jack shrugged. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"That means you're going to be hooking up with some guy, right?" Davey wrapped one arm around his middle while the other held up an accusing finger in Jack’s direction, a defiant pose Jack had become familiar with, but Jack should have known better.

He should have known Davey was using it to protect himself.

"And so what if I am, David?" Jack asked, readjusting the bag on his shoulder, not because it had slipped, but to make it obvious that he was going whether Davey liked it or not. "You're not my mom and you're not my boyfriend, so back off!"

Davey's mouth dropped open as if he had been slapped, but he quickly set his lips in a tight, thin line and nodded.

"You're right," he said, his voice hard. "I'm not your boyfriend. Go. Have a nice time catching an STD."

Davey spun on his heel and stormed off toward his house, and Jack groaned after him.

Leave it to David Robert Jacobs to suck the fun out of everything.

Well, Jack wasn't going to let him. This party was going to be insane, and Jack intended to enjoy every damn sordid minute of it.

\--

The party should have been fun. He'd been there before. There was even a college guy he met last time that he was hoping to see. But the whole drive down, he felt a pang in his chest. It was small, to the left of his sternum, and it pinched like a muscle cramp. He didn't let it bother him. It was probably from overexerting himself in lacrosse practice. He told himself that if he ignored it, it would go away.

But it didn't.

He decided reluctantly that it could maybe possibly be a spot of guilt for the way he left things with Davey, and when he got to the house he was staying at, he sent Davey a text.

_ To Davey: Just wondering how you're doing. I'll see you on Monday. _

Jack waited for fifteen minutes, sitting in his car with his phone in his hand, for Davey to send a text back.

Fifteen minutes would have been enough. Davey always had his phone on him.

Jack didn't get a reply.

\--

A few hours in, he found the college guy (Micah might have been his name, Jack couldn't remember), and discovered that College Guy had been looking forward to seeing him again, too.

Jack got so far as his hand down the guy's pants. The guy moaned in his ear, his lips on Jack's neck, his breath on Jack's skin, but Jack couldn't do it.

He couldn't fuck this guy.

Because this guy, as handsome and as hot as he was, as much as he shamelessly begged Jack to have sex with him, wasn't Davey.

The voice moaning his name wasn't Davey's.

The breath on his neck, smelling of brown weed and rancid beer, wasn't Davey's, which always smelled like sweet peppermint and coffee.

The skin beneath his hand wasn't Davey's - wasn't soft, wasn't incredibly smooth, didn't have Davey's warmth.

When Jack kissed this guy – only once – he didn't have Davey's taste.

\--

Five hours later, Jack was back in Davey's bed, whispering apologies into his skin as he entered Davey slowly.

"I'm sorry, Davey…I'm so, so sorry…forgive me for being an ass…for being so stupid…"

They spent every weekend together without fail when Crutchie went with his friends, but the rule still remained.

They didn't act like a couple in public. No one was allowed to know.

Because Jack didn't think he was ready.

Because Jack was still being stupid.

But Jack is done being stupid. The smartest thing he ever did at Dalton was getting involved with Davey. Now, he wants everyone to know.

So he stops kissing Davey good-bye, and as the rain falls harder, he climbs back into the bed.

Davey's alarm goes off at ten o'clock (the time he lets himself sleep in till on Sundays) and he turns with eyes closed to reach out and shut it off…only this time, there's something in his way.

"Hmmm," Davey mutters, recovering from sleep enough to let his eyes drift open. Instead of his clock, he sees Jack, eyes open, staring back at him, wide awake like he's been lying there watching Davey sleep for hours. Davey smiles seeing him there, but then he remembers what day it is, and he frowns. "Aren't you supposed to be gone by now?"

It sounds bitter, but Davey is done covering up how bitter he feels about this.

Jack ignores him and places a kiss on the seam of his lips to quiet him. Davey knows this ploy. It's the way Jack avoids discussing important topics like their relationship, or whatever this is between them.

Davey puts a hand to Jack's chest in an attempt to stop him, but it's not all that effective.

"Jack…" Davey mutters against his lips.

"Not this time, babe," Jack says, putting his arms around Davey, pulling him in closer, winding a possessive leg between his.

"Wha-"

Jack doesn't stop kissing, even when Davey's eyes snap open and he turns his mouth to the side to get his question out. "Do you mean…"

"That's right," Jack says, smirking as he starts kissing down his reluctant bedmate's neck. "So why don't you shut up and kiss me some more? Then when Crutchie gets his ass back from whatever the hell he does, we'll let him find us and the cat will be out of the bag."

**Author's Note:**

> Comment? Kudo? Do we like? Let me know k thxxxx
> 
> LOVE LOVE LOVE


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